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Bar Coding and Identification Wiki
Introduction and Scope This bar coding and identification Wikia introduces the reader to the history, technological progression, design, and examples of bar coding. What is a Bar Code? A bar code is a printed pattern and often attached series of numbers, commonly seen on purchased retail items, that allows that item to be inventoried and kept track of. That small printed pattern, often seen as stripes forming a rectangle or pixels in a square, is read by a bar code scanner using varied forms of lightwaves and reflections to identify the item and verify it's location or usage. 1 Bar Code Start Up Revolutionary Start 2 All the way back in 1948, two graduate students at Philadelphia's Drexel Institute of Technology, Silver and Woodland, overheard the president of a large food chain corporation pleading with and being turned down by one of the deans to take on a research project to come up with a solution to automatically inventorying items in the store at receiving and again at check out. The only solution for grocery stores at the time were manually punched cards that were timely, costly, bulky, and not very accurate in the daily chaos of the industry. Even though the dean did not approve of the project, Silver and Woodland wanted to take it up. Their original idea was inspired by the current uses for morse code and movie soundtracks that used ultraviolet lighting. They saw potential but printing ink was not stable and it was far too costly. Silver and Woodland filed patents on October 20, 1949 to secure the idea and determine ultimately whether the vertical stripe or concentric circle pattern should be used in the industry. In 1952, Silver and Woodland built the first functional bar code reader that was as large as a dresser and needed to be covered by black oilcloth to shut out ambient light that would interfere with the readers. The device successfully read electronically printed material but often destroyed the paper and required an excessive amount of power and limited data retention. In 1971, RCA bought out the patent and jolted several companies in to action to see the idea through. Separately, in the early 1960's, David Collins saw the need for inventory of railroad cars with the Pennsylvania Railroad and constructed reflective blue and orange stripes that corresponded to the numbers 0-9. The majority of the kinks were worked out of the system by 1967 with adoption and equipment installation in 1970, but no real profits came out of this change as the equipment and upkeep was still far too costly. Meanwhile, technology was catching up with Silver, Woodland, and Collins with the introduction of lasers. These lasers were a far cheaper, faster, and less destructive way to read the black and white electronically printed bar codes. Two systems were quietly put in to place for testing at General Motors and General Trading. The system was working but the machines to make this happen were still being hand built and the current laser technology could only read two-digit bar codes. A Kroger grocery chain volunteered to act as the guinea pig for the new barcoding technology in the mid 1970's and a committee was put together to look into the standardization of the manufacturing and use of the bar codes and scanners. This testing phase was called "The Manhattan Project" and was headed by Alan Haberman. Some guidelines created by this committee included the scanner being able to read the bar code at any angle at a specified range of distances, it was becoming increasingly cheaper and easier to print bar codes and labels with newer lasers and integrated circuits, and the pay-off for automated checkout systems was forecasted to be 2.5 years. (all information for the "Revolutionary Start" can be found from Reference 2 ) Current Bar Code and Scanner Vendors As barcodes and the scanners, or readers, have advanced, the most common vendors have been identified as: 3 Diversity Codes The most commonly used barcodes are: 5 Scanners asdf Areas of Use Manufacturing asdf Retail asd Healthcare asdf How It Works Codes asdf Scanners asdf Design Parameters Benefits asdf How much can be stored? asdf Limitations of Bar Codes asdf 7 Most Common Reasons Bar Codes Fail While barcodes and their scanners have been and are still proving to be tremendous leaps in technology, the kinks are not entirely gone. We most commonly find that barcodes and barcode scanners fail for the following reasons: 4 1. Shrink wrap or excessive lamination covers the barcode 2. The barcode has poor print quality due to excessive press gain 3. The barcode was printed with poor color combinations 4. The barcode was printed on clear or translucent polybag 5. An excessive reflective quality of metals or metalized substrates 6. A violation in the barcode quiet zones 7. The placement of the barcode is too close to a fold or edge References 1 - Rouse, Margaret. "What Is Bar Code (or Barcode)? - Definition from WhatIs.com." Search Manufacturing ERP. TechTarget. Web.. 2 - Seideman, Tony. "Barcode History: Barcodes Sweep the World." Barcoding Incorporated. Web. . 3 - "Manufacturers." Barcode Manufacturer Catalog. Web. . 4 - Nachtrieb, John. "The Seven Most Common Reasons That Barcodes Fail." Barcode-Test: Getting It Done Right. 9 July 2013. Web. . 5 - "Different Types of Barcodes." MakerBarcodes. Web. . 6 - Category:Browse